Singer-songwriter, a wonderfully old-fashioned word, it suits Reinhard Mey and Konstantin Wecker, as if it were made for Stephan Sulke. And not because the word reminds us of a time when intelligence was still artistic rather than artificial, but because singer-songwriter means that it's Stephan Sulke's songs that do something to you.
And that's on this day in Bochum. The last evening of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year festival. The eve of October 7, the day a year ago when the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was committed, an unimaginably bestial act of slaughter. Stephan Sulke comes from a Jewish household, his parents escaped the Nazis from Fasanenstrasse in Berlin to faraway Shanghai. There, in exile, he was born in 1943, he knows Hamas included him. And he wonders about the reaction of the local cultural scene, "the German artists (not all, but almost)", he wrote in October 2023 on his Facebook page, "show a pathetic cowardice. People, I know how most of you think. Why so silent?"
The question lingers. Why so silent. "I personally stand openly with Israel and with all Jews worldwide," Sulke continued: "But maybe I'm not an artist. The end."
A bitter word. But not the end. The evening in Bochum shows Stephan Sulke, to whom so many, including many artists, owe so much. Songs that flirt with you throughout your life. Because they are further away from the Hamas barbarism than Shanghai is from Berlin. Sulke has always been an artist who did not compromise, he grew up multilingual in Switzerland, in between one would say today with salutary arrogance and certainly never. At 14, he buys a guitar with his saved money, learns chords, also learns the piano and begins to compose. In 1963, his first single was released in France, with "Mon Tourne-Disque" he immediately wins the Grand Prix du Premier Disque, the award is presented to him by none other than Maurice Chevalier, the great entertainer and grand seigneur of chansons. Sulke accepts the award, it fits.
For a while, he then went to the USA, got to know the music business, back in Switzerland he set up a recording studio, studied on the side, in 1976 "STEPHAN SULKE" is released with the magnificently beautiful, wondrously sad "Lottchen, weißt du noch". Sulke is 33 when he receives the award for "best newcomer artist of the year". While others achieve great success with his songs, for example Herbert Grönemeyer interprets his "Ich Hab´ Dich Bloß Geliebt" on the '83 album.
A year earlier, in 1982, "Uschi" was released, Sulke's song sounds obtrusively harmless, the lyrics are of the finest poison, "Uschi" tops the charts in German-speaking countries. Other of his songs create a community that gathers around him, "Tom" is one of them and "Der Mann aus Russland", a strangely timeless song, long overtaken by reality and possibly ahead of it. In 1989, Sulke, entirely for himself, turned his back on the music industry.
And he returns ten years later out of nowhere. "Nonexistence"? Nothing like that, new songs, new albums, one called "Liebe ist nichts für Anfänger" (Love is not for beginners), songs by Stephan Sulke are just as little. All of them are equipped with the Stephan Sulke trademarks: a Swiss-schnurrige view of world events from an eminently private perspective. "My music," he says, "has always been a mix of sarcasm, melancholy, and a bit of silliness".
And this mix on this evening? The last day of the Jewish New Year festival, marking the first anniversary of 10/7, commemorating the more than 1200 innocent civilians slaughtered by Hamas?
Yes, on this evening Stephan Sulke sings, his sarcasm, his melancholy, his silliness are more valuable than ever. Why so silent? Sulke sings.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
